13 January,2011 06:36 AM IST | | Poornima Swaminathan
Police planning to use breathalysers near CM's and Governor's bungalows to deter intoxicated motorists
Giving the CM's residence and the Governor's bungalow a wide berth if you have had one-too-many for the road will be a wise decision, or else you may find yourself sleeping it off for the night, in jail.
The Maharashtra police are considering deputing personnel manning breathalyser units in the vicinity of two high security VVIP areas in the city Rajbhavan, the Governor's bungalow and Varsha, the Chief Minister's residence to deter intoxicated motorists from attempting to enter the areas.
Police will be buying as many as 300 units of breathalyser before it commences its operation to fend off drunk drivers from the VVIP routes
Further, any motorist found to be over the permissible level of intoxication, will be arrested and carted off to jail.
Though, there have been no official cases of drink driving registered so far at police stations in whose jurisdiction Rajbhavan or Varsha falls, the move has been considered to avoid potentially uncomfortable situations in the future.
All breathalyser units to be used at these points will be equipped with printers, to ensure that results indicating blood-alcohol-level will be instantly available on the spot.
Presently, the police have been forced to resort to the primitive method of having motorists exhaling in a police constable's face to check whether he/she is intoxicated and are certain that this will not go down well with visiting or resident VIPs.
Currently, Mumbai traffic police are in possession of around 100 breathalysers, which are distributed across traffic police check posts (8-9 breathalysers at each post) in the city.
The department, apart from being under-staffed, is also facing a crunch with regard to equipment including breathalysers and the units presently with them are not functioning.
The Mumbai police floated a tender on January 12, ordering 300 breathalysers to be procured under the
modernisation programme this year.
Other items in the tender include laser speed gun, automatic sliding gate, trolley mirror and under vehicle
scanning systems that will be used at these two official residences.
"All equipment will be procured to safeguard the official residences and will be distributed to units according to necessity," said Ashok Dongre, Additional Director of police.
Dongre, however, did not say how many breath-alysers would be used around the two bungalows.
300
Number of breathalysers the Maharashtra police have ordered, by floating a tender on January 12
100
Number of breathalysers currently with the Mumbai police
860
Number of cases of drink driving recorded on New Year's Eve in Mumbai
